I've tried baseball and football, but the basketball sim is what gathers my interest. I've read through the posts and still have a couple of questions:

1) I want to make sure I'm getting the most out of my top guys, when measuring out minutes per game, is it best to go by the Recommended Minutes per game?

2) Defensive Matchups - What is the best way to adjust your defense-Use defensive matchup optimization or have the players only defend at their current position. Is this mainly depending on the team your facing and if so, what do you look out for?

ok since mr know-it-all isnt going to weigh in I'll give you my two cents

1) for guys with mpg north of 30 you can probably exceed their real life mpg by a smidge and get away with it - for guys with mpgs above 40 you can be even more daring - on the other hand with short minute guys the degree of variance and the inexactitude of the substitution process makes it very difficult to set and maintain appropriate minutes

2) I sometimes go as low as 75% settings - I assume that the sim will put my best defensive option available at each position on his highest usage player on the floor

Posted by kjt963 on 5/27/2013 8:53:00 AM (view original):Thanks for the response, i really appreciate it. So am I correct in assuming its best to play backups at the end of a game with big leads to build up your starters available minutes?

The substitution pattern is kind of a mystery... but The SIM always play your starters in games end unless:

1.Your team got a lead above your settings and decides to rest your starters cause the outcome is likely decided.
2.Your team is losing big time above your settings so the SIM sends the mop out crew to finish the game.
3. One of your starters foul out

Posted by kjt963 on 5/27/2013 8:53:00 AM (view original):Thanks for the response, i really appreciate it. So am I correct in assuming its best to play backups at the end of a game with big leads to build up your starters available minutes?

I set my Clear the Bench settings to Never when I'm winning and when I'm losing. That way, I at least have a shot at keeping the target minutes for each player close to what I've set them at. If you're sending in your bench with X minutes left, you're adding a variable. If you've built a good squad, you'll likely be checking the target minutes after each game regardless, but at least you'll have eliminated one of the variables.

Welcom kjt, ignore balonius, he's the sites "Total Tool" or is that "Fool', either way is fairly accurate. WRT req min's it's best not to push your players, if a player starts to exceed their RL stat's the SIM will put them into penalty and the players performance will suffer. That said, we all push our players in the open leagues, as a rule of thumb most consider 17,500 min's + rookies as acceptable. Defense does 1 thing on the SIM, it depresses your opponents FG%. Now this is important, ast% is how you increase the FG% of your own players, so ast% is how you counter defense and visa versa. Also, everything has a price, if you load any stat it's most likely at the cost of some other parameter. The SIM rewards balanced team design and smart league play. Currently there is a trend to bring as much ast% & defense as possible, whereas a year ago owners were bring as many boards & as much eFG% as possible. Turns out you don't need excessive boards and eFG% is strongly effected by ast% & defense. Hope this 411 will help you get a start. GL

kjt, I strongly suggest you read Ashameal's thread on "usage", it's important that you understand this stat. In short. too little usage and your team goes into penalty and performance suffers, too much usage and you spent money on points you'll never get at the expense of other parameters. If your usage distribution is incorrect, you'll have problems. Do yourself a favor and give it a read.